You tell me. I haven't seen any arguments that prove the legitimacy of government yet.

You can refer to something like Hobbes' Leviathan for an argument that attempts to justify government powers, in this case, monarchy. There are other examples of this sort of thinking, but I seldom see evidence of it in modern politicians and bureaucrats - they seem to take their powers for granted.

I'd also consider the Constitution as an example of at least clearly defining the limits of government powers in an effort to justify the limited powers claimed. Of course, these limits have been selectively ignored when convenient for at least the last century.

Last edited by ArturoBandini on Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Arturo, I've always liked you as a poster and feel that we more or less align on economic issues. But it seems that you are just being obtuse here for the sake of taking a theoretical belief to an extreme that has little practical bearing.

I believe that property rights are paramount. More important in fact than freedom of speech. But what one does on ones property is not done in a vacuum.

Before zoning laws, you could build anything anywhere. Say somebody bought a few houses next to mine in the city, knocked them down and opened up a pig farm. I would be impacted by noise, smell and probably detrimental health issues. The city's sewers would probably not be able to handle all the waste. Maybe our groundwater would be contaminated. That's why we have zoning laws against raising livestock within the city limits.

Same goes for building a factory in a residential area. Or a number of other examples. Neighboring properties impact each other and your property rights cannot be upheld at the cost of mine.

Lastly I close with this. I am now reading all of your posts in this thread in the voice of Ron Swanson and they make a lot more sense.

green union terrace chair wrote:Before zoning laws, you could build anything anywhere. Say somebody bought a few houses next to mine in the city, knocked them down and opened up a pig farm. I would be impacted by noise, smell and probably detrimental health issues. The city's sewers would probably not be able to handle all the waste. Maybe our groundwater would be contaminated. That's why we have zoning laws against raising livestock within the city limits.

Same goes for building a factory in a residential area. Or a number of other examples. Neighboring properties impact each other and your property rights cannot be upheld at the cost of mine.

All of the issues you've defined are a result of improper or incomplete designation of property rights. I understand the motivations for zoning laws, but I think that the same results with fewer negative externalities (in the long run) could be achieved by treating more things as protected by property rights.

For instance, consider the objection that a city sewer could not handle the waste effluent of a pig farm. This is a valid point. But isn't this problem based on the implicit obligation of the city to provide sewer services? In a scenario of hard property rights, the pig farmer would be either denied access to the sewer system or held liable when his property (pig shit) caused damage to the private property of the sewer operator.

And don't single me out for talking about theoretical situations here - do you think it is realistic that an pig farm of significant scale (enough to threaten the sewer system) is likely to pop up within city limits? Or is this just a theoretical exercise to prove a point?

Finally, while you are praising zoning laws for preventing absurd cases like urban pig farms or neighborhood oil refineries, don't forget about the low-level everyday harm that they do in more mundane cases. For instance, the supply and affordability of housing. Or the single-use land development patterns that have created asphalt wastelands like West Towne Mall, meanwhile in my suburban neighborhood there is nowhere in walking distance to buy milk or beer. Granted, these problems might be addressed by revising zoning laws instead of repealing them entirely, but the direction of change needs to move toward freedom of choice, not more control for bureaucrats.

DCB wrote:Too bad. I was kind of interested in the original question: what qualifies as a 'significant' change that merits review by Landmarks or other commissions?

I'll bump this because I think it is a good question.

It is a good question, but with only a vague and imprecise answer. "Significant" is more than "minor" or "incidental." Yes, that's admittedly a subjective determination, as with many other legal questions. The assumption is that reasonable citizen commissioners, working with professional staff, following a public hearing or meeting, will be able to distinguish what is significant from what is not in a manner that honors the ordinance and reflects the broad community standard.

Oh, and Artie -- yes, there have been pig farms within the city limits during the era of municipal sewerage.

I'm afraid I don't know how significant these changes were, since Cover prevented staff from writing a report and bringing to us. Staff of Landmarks and UDC thought they were significant enough for commission consideration.